I've spent almost a decade working there, and here's how it's gonna play out, mark my words: 1. Sinofsky will release Windows 8 to much fanfare 2. Sinofsky will pop the question as to whether he should be the CEO. He's currently the heir to the throne. 3. If that question is asked positively (90% chance), Ballmer moves on "to spend more time with the family". If negatively—Sinofsky moves on to work "on other endeavors".
Until Win 8 comes out, I don't know how badbly Ballmer needs to screw up to hasten the process. He and Gates have the Board under their collective thumb, and BillG isn't going to fire him. Let's face it, in spite of all the stock related issues, Microsoft has been doing quite well financially and he did substantially (perhaps too substantially) grow the company.
Um, dude. You don't have to fork over anything to compile or run in an emulator. You do have to pay $100/year to run your software on the device and to ship it through the app store. And you can bet Microsoft will be charging for that, too. They have to make money somehow.
They can launch every month if need be. Their designs are perfected already, the only holdup is the lack of budget (Russia spends very little on space).
>>For the US Government, there's a strong need to keep that capability in the US too.
Why? The only real need is to keep the ballistic missile capabilities up to date. I'd rather NASA focused on things Russians can't do - advanced satellites, autonomous robotics, materials research, next generation engines, stuff like that.
Well, so does my dentist and my the grocery store, and everybody else. But even if they do, a decade from now it's still going to be cheaper than building stuff here in the US. Their engineers are more than happy to get $1K a month for their work. Over here, it's forty bucks an hour, all things considered. Materials are cheaper there too (seeing that they don't import anything).
If it's only about the cost, give the money to Russians. If you pay a little more, they'll even let you have the blueprints for stuff. They've been launching stuff into space on the cheap for decades now.
Learn to say "NO". Scale down your responsibilities. Be diplomatic about it. Basically every now and then ask your boss, "I have X, Y and Z on my plate but I only have time for two of the three. Which one do we want to drop, outsource, have someone else do?" That's how you get your life back—through careful budgeting and time management.
Face it, it's better to do a good job on two things than shitty job on three. This is probably the reason why you didn't get promoted—as a rule, people don't get promoted for doing shitty work.
Your task is to have enough diplomatic skill to explain this to your management without it reflecting negatively on you as a professional.
That's why I use Apple stuff, anyway. I'm on my second MacBook Pro (my wife took over the old one after 4 years of merciless use, and my son took over her MacBook). We also have two iPhones and an iPad. As if this wasn't enough, my company-issued laptop is also a MacBook Pro. You can tell I'm a satisfied customer.
The reason why I like Apple is their attention to detail. Backlit keyboard, fans that you can't hear (on a Core i7), gorgeous aluminum enclosure, pretty good (for a laptop) display, 7 hours of battery life, 1 inch thick. And it goes on and on from there. GPU acceleration in Aperture and core imaging APIs. Great PDF and color management support. Great audio subsystem. Great UI toolkit. GCC tool chain (and LLVM/Clang in Snow Leopard). Quick to wake up from sleep. Quick to start up and shut down. Automatic, transparent, on-the-fly versioned backups. Software bundle which is actually enjoyable to use (imagine that!). Drag-and-drop installation of apps (for most apps, anyway). And so on and so forth.
AND it's a certified Unix. Sure, you could probably hack it to run on something else (giving up power management and a few other "irrelevant" features), but if you have the dough, the attraction is undeniable. And Apple is perfectly fine with targeting only those who don't mind to pay for the best.
Umm. I wouldn't be opposed to them taxing the _profits_, not gross sales. Particularly if they let me deduct the losses when I sell something for less than I paid for it a month ago.
And I had been using Microsoft tools for 15 years before looking at them. Sure, it's jarring at first, but you get used to it. Apple's APIs on the other hand, completely blow Microsoft Win32 out of the water. It's not even close.
Merely moving your family to CA doesn't release you from your obligations under the non-compete, if your previous company was in the state where non-competes are legal. See e.g. Kai Fu Lee's defection from MSFT to Google.
There are only a few worthwhile companies which build operating systems, for instance. Tablets, mobile phone OS's, search engines, ads -- these are just a few highly competitive areas with few big players. If those players strike a pact, you'll have to change your career. This is shitty and unfair.
I'm sorry, this is retarded. Agreements like this amount to indentured servitude for the employees. In my experience, moving from one company to another was the surest way to boost my pay. Had I stayed with the same company for a decade, my merit rises would merely beat inflation. I would also be worth a lot less to a prospective employer due to not having a varied background.
I would like not only these pacts to be outlawed, but non-competes as well. For trade secrets, there's the court of law where trade secret disputes can be adjudicated.
Here's the problem with the scientific R&D. In order to do something worthwhile, you need to be up to speed on what's already invented. Unfortunately, getting up to speed is HARD. You read a paper, and that paper references 10 other papers which you'd ideally need to read to understand things well. This is why most research positions require a PhD. Not because PhDs are smarter per se (though they often are), but because they won't hole themselves up in a lab for a year to reinvent the bicycle.
I like what they're doing with rich text editing, and I like the "playback" feature. For collaboration, I think it has two main flaws: 1. It's hard to catch up after you haven't seen a wave for a while. Harder than email for sure. 2. It's too "realtime". I don't want people to start replying to me before I finish my message.
Yup. And neither of us have any experience (perceived or real) with the actual terrorism and sabotage. I bet a determined pro can come up with three dozen workable plans within an hour.
If you don't mind to die, then what's to stop you from hiding a few sticks of C4 (with ceramic shrapnel, of course) inside your body by, you know, having a surgeon sew it in? Stick a simple fuse triggered by a Hall sensor into it, and carry an inconspicuous looking magnet with you onboard to trip the fuse.
I said it before and I'll say it again -- any determined engineer will find a way to completely bypass these "security" measures without even straining his/her brain too much.
They're interested in making money. If there is something mobile and connected that this 26% wants to buy that has a substantial profit margin in it, you can bet Apple is working on it _right now_. The key word here is "profit" though, Apple wouldn't sink billions into something just for the marketshare.
Slashdot Mirror
I've spent almost a decade working there, and here's how it's gonna play out, mark my words:
1. Sinofsky will release Windows 8 to much fanfare
2. Sinofsky will pop the question as to whether he should be the CEO. He's currently the heir to the throne.
3. If that question is asked positively (90% chance), Ballmer moves on "to spend more time with the family". If negatively—Sinofsky moves on to work "on other endeavors".
Until Win 8 comes out, I don't know how badbly Ballmer needs to screw up to hasten the process. He and Gates have the Board under their collective thumb, and BillG isn't going to fire him. Let's face it, in spite of all the stock related issues, Microsoft has been doing quite well financially and he did substantially (perhaps too substantially) grow the company.
Sorry, I'll believe it when I see it selling for this much and when Engadget publishes a review. Until then it's a figment of their imagination.
Um, dude. You don't have to fork over anything to compile or run in an emulator. You do have to pay $100/year to run your software on the device and to ship it through the app store. And you can bet Microsoft will be charging for that, too. They have to make money somehow.
They can launch every month if need be. Their designs are perfected already, the only holdup is the lack of budget (Russia spends very little on space).
>>For the US Government, there's a strong need to keep that capability in the US too.
Why? The only real need is to keep the ballistic missile capabilities up to date. I'd rather NASA focused on things Russians can't do - advanced satellites, autonomous robotics, materials research, next generation engines, stuff like that.
My grocery bill doubled in the last 10 years. My dentist now charges about 35 percent more than she did in 2001.
Well, so does my dentist and my the grocery store, and everybody else. But even if they do, a decade from now it's still going to be cheaper than building stuff here in the US. Their engineers are more than happy to get $1K a month for their work. Over here, it's forty bucks an hour, all things considered. Materials are cheaper there too (seeing that they don't import anything).
If it's only about the cost, give the money to Russians. If you pay a little more, they'll even let you have the blueprints for stuff. They've been launching stuff into space on the cheap for decades now.
Learn to say "NO". Scale down your responsibilities. Be diplomatic about it. Basically every now and then ask your boss, "I have X, Y and Z on my plate but I only have time for two of the three. Which one do we want to drop, outsource, have someone else do?" That's how you get your life back—through careful budgeting and time management.
Face it, it's better to do a good job on two things than shitty job on three. This is probably the reason why you didn't get promoted—as a rule, people don't get promoted for doing shitty work.
Your task is to have enough diplomatic skill to explain this to your management without it reflecting negatively on you as a professional.
And this "matters" to us "nerds" how? WTF is up with slashdot lately?
Reminds me of this: http://www.theonion.com/video/breaking-news-some-bullshit-happening-somewhere,16928/
Core i7 MacBook Pro, 17"
That's why I use Apple stuff, anyway. I'm on my second MacBook Pro (my wife took over the old one after 4 years of merciless use, and my son took over her MacBook). We also have two iPhones and an iPad. As if this wasn't enough, my company-issued laptop is also a MacBook Pro. You can tell I'm a satisfied customer.
The reason why I like Apple is their attention to detail. Backlit keyboard, fans that you can't hear (on a Core i7), gorgeous aluminum enclosure, pretty good (for a laptop) display, 7 hours of battery life, 1 inch thick. And it goes on and on from there. GPU acceleration in Aperture and core imaging APIs. Great PDF and color management support. Great audio subsystem. Great UI toolkit. GCC tool chain (and LLVM/Clang in Snow Leopard). Quick to wake up from sleep. Quick to start up and shut down. Automatic, transparent, on-the-fly versioned backups. Software bundle which is actually enjoyable to use (imagine that!). Drag-and-drop installation of apps (for most apps, anyway). And so on and so forth.
AND it's a certified Unix. Sure, you could probably hack it to run on something else (giving up power management and a few other "irrelevant" features), but if you have the dough, the attraction is undeniable. And Apple is perfectly fine with targeting only those who don't mind to pay for the best.
Umm. I wouldn't be opposed to them taxing the _profits_, not gross sales. Particularly if they let me deduct the losses when I sell something for less than I paid for it a month ago.
And I had been using Microsoft tools for 15 years before looking at them. Sure, it's jarring at first, but you get used to it. Apple's APIs on the other hand, completely blow Microsoft Win32 out of the water. It's not even close.
Unlike Dell, they're also quite successful at software and media distribution. And soon, they'll also be successful in mobile ads.
Their profit margin is LOWER than Microsoft's. Just sayin'.
Merely moving your family to CA doesn't release you from your obligations under the non-compete, if your previous company was in the state where non-competes are legal. See e.g. Kai Fu Lee's defection from MSFT to Google.
There are only a few worthwhile companies which build operating systems, for instance. Tablets, mobile phone OS's, search engines, ads -- these are just a few highly competitive areas with few big players. If those players strike a pact, you'll have to change your career. This is shitty and unfair.
I'm sorry, this is retarded. Agreements like this amount to indentured servitude for the employees. In my experience, moving from one company to another was the surest way to boost my pay. Had I stayed with the same company for a decade, my merit rises would merely beat inflation. I would also be worth a lot less to a prospective employer due to not having a varied background.
I would like not only these pacts to be outlawed, but non-competes as well. For trade secrets, there's the court of law where trade secret disputes can be adjudicated.
Here's the problem with the scientific R&D. In order to do something worthwhile, you need to be up to speed on what's already invented. Unfortunately, getting up to speed is HARD. You read a paper, and that paper references 10 other papers which you'd ideally need to read to understand things well. This is why most research positions require a PhD. Not because PhDs are smarter per se (though they often are), but because they won't hole themselves up in a lab for a year to reinvent the bicycle.
I like what they're doing with rich text editing, and I like the "playback" feature. For collaboration, I think it has two main flaws:
1. It's hard to catch up after you haven't seen a wave for a while. Harder than email for sure.
2. It's too "realtime". I don't want people to start replying to me before I finish my message.
Yup. And neither of us have any experience (perceived or real) with the actual terrorism and sabotage. I bet a determined pro can come up with three dozen workable plans within an hour.
If you don't mind to die, then what's to stop you from hiding a few sticks of C4 (with ceramic shrapnel, of course) inside your body by, you know, having a surgeon sew it in? Stick a simple fuse triggered by a Hall sensor into it, and carry an inconspicuous looking magnet with you onboard to trip the fuse.
I said it before and I'll say it again -- any determined engineer will find a way to completely bypass these "security" measures without even straining his/her brain too much.
It doesn't have to be super-expensive (see e.g. iPod nano or shuffle). It just has to have a ~25-30% profit margin built in.
They're interested in making money. If there is something mobile and connected that this 26% wants to buy that has a substantial profit margin in it, you can bet Apple is working on it _right now_. The key word here is "profit" though, Apple wouldn't sink billions into something just for the marketshare.
This means he's not 100% sure himself if his strategy will play out in the end. If he was sure, he wouldn't be debating.